


Unlovable Men

by drcalvin



Category: Rómeó és Júlia (Színház)
Genre: Canon Het Relationship, Flashbacks, Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 12:04:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2772341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drcalvin/pseuds/drcalvin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"How can you love a man with your cousin's blood on his hands?" </p>
<p>What Nurse remembers when she asks that of Júlia, and what Júlia recalls in turn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unlovable Men

**Author's Note:**

  * For [madame_le_maire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_le_maire/gifts).



> Just a little ficlet with the season's greetings. Hope you'll enjoy it.

_"How can you love a man with your cousin's blood on his hands?"_

_This is what Nurse recalls when she asks that question:_

A bright spring day. Her little Julia is giggling as she runs among the ruins, enjoying the sun and freedom. She is content to wait on the remains of a wall for her young charge to run the winter confinement out of her legs, turning her face towards the sunlight. It is milder than it will be during the sweltering summer, and the bright green of fresh shoots makes the dry grass, not yet replaced by fresh, seem positively ancient. Above Nurse, a large pine spreads it's scent, the evergreen awakening for one more year, and below her her own budding charge greets the spring as joyfully as a songbird.

She feels light of heart, all worries swept away, as the sun has done to the last lingering winter rains, and she hums an old song to herself.

That is when she hears a heart-stopping shriek and realizes that she has not seen her darling girl for too long. The peaceful ruin takes on a sinister cast - rocks crack and fall, roots trip, slopes are treacherously slippery. The Montague men could take hostages, or tramps and madmen lurk in the shadows….

She heaves herself up, calling that beloved name, when she is passed by a shadow in dark green and brown. She follows as well, her pulse hammering in her ears, all manner of dangers clamoring in her mind.

When she arrives at one of the ruined terraces below where she rested, she finds her little girl on the edge of the pond, slime and muck covering her white dress and small fists only spreading dirt over her face as she tries to wipe away her tears.

At her feet kneels Tybalt, shushing and comforting the child as if he were himself her mother. He doesn't care that he's kneeling in the muck or that his new dagger drags in the water. He cares not even when Nurse reaches them, only shares a brief grateful look with her, all his worry and tenderness focused on Julia. 

Once Nurse has stopped the tears, wiped filth away, once Tybalt has caught a frog to please his cousin – only then will he bother to clean himself off and fuss about his friends laughing when he returns such a mess. 

In time, he will grow – in years, in stature, in bitterness carved deep into his every gesture. But the softness in his eyes when he gazes on Julia remains, although the opportunities to gift her with frogs become few.

_"How can you love a man with your cousin's blood on his hands?"_

_This is what Julia recalls, when she hears that question:_

He mocks her with his words and songs, apes her proclamations of love. But as he turns to her, the teasing melts away although still he laughs, admitting his love in the same breath as he makes them both seem like fools – but gently, gently. 

Oh, he knows infatuation, her Romeo, and he knows they have both drunk deep of love's first madness…but there is such gentle joy in him, that Julia has known before only from her own dreams. 

He mocks her, Romeo, and he mocks himself, but he mocks neither with ill-will nor anger. She recalls her cousins dismissing a man too weak to take the woman he desires. They thought her too young to understand it, and did not even know she had heard. But Julia heard them, too many times to count over the years, and knows well what is said about all women but her in Capulet's house. She knows that their scornful laughter does not burn her only by an accident of birth and name. 

And here, beneath her balcony stands Romeo, singing and laughing in honest love – You amuse me, his eyes say, and I amuse myself. Romeo and Julia, dancing masked at a ball, stumbling blindfolded into love – are we not terribly amusing? Let us dance again, without masks or pretentions, let us love and laugh and live in eternal joy.

It began at a ball. Where it will end, Julia does not know as she kneels tearfully in her bedroom. But there has only been one man in her life who has looked up at her from below, who has laughed in such free joy that she felt invited to join him. She can no more abandon him than she can forgive Tybalt for tearing her joy apart with the murder.

_"No," Julia answers the question, "no! I am true to my husband."_

_"No," Nurse replies in turn. "No. I will not help you defend this murderer."_


End file.
